Club seeks to amp recycling on game day

The Students for Sustainability Club is increasing their recycling effort by participating in the Game Day Challenge, a nation-wide competition among colleges and universities to recycle what is generated at home football games.

During game day tailgating activities, volunteers from the Students for Sustainability Club hand out blue recycling bags to tailgaters, asking them to fill the bag with their recyclable waste such as soda bottles, soda cans, beer cans, etc … All tailgaters have to do is leave the bags in the lot where they will be picked up after the game by volunteers. Universities can compete in a number of categories: waste minimization, recycling, organics, diversion rate and GHG gas reduction.

Elizabeth Winters, president of the Students for Sustainability Club, said it’s about making recycling an easy process for tailgaters.

“It’s really a matter of convenience because there aren’t really any recycling bins or trash bins in parking lots during football games, so most of that ends up being put in garbage bags that end of up in the landfill,” she said.

The club records the weight of recycled materials both in the tailgating area and inside the football stadium. Last year USU ranked 15th out of 62 schools in waste minimization, and came in low in the recycling, diversion rate and GHG gas reduction categories. However, Sustainability Coordinator Alexi Lamm said it was the club’s first year participating in the competition and lower numbers were to be expected.

Lamm said USU Athletics has hired five people to its clean-up crew to specifically pick up recyclable material. In the last two years the athletic department has also supplied recycling bins inside the stadium for patrons to use.

At the home game against Wake Forest University last month, the club totaled 265 pounds of recyclables in the tailgating lot and inside the stadium. Fifty-six pounds were collected from the tailgating area at the Idaho State University game on Sept. 6.

Winters said she has yet to encounter a tailgater who refused a blue bag; those who attend tailgating activities have begun to recognize the effort.

“It’s been fairly successful at the home games we’ve done so far,” she said. “People will recognize us when we go pass out recycling bags and they get excited about it, so it’s fun.”

Winters said the biggest challenge the club has experienced throughout this competition is the lack of volunteers. The majority of volunteers, who sign up for one to one-and-a-half hour shifts, have been club members.

“Really the biggest thing is getting people to help with passing out bags and helping get the tailgaters excited about the Game Day Challenge, explaining what it is,” she said.

Another challenge is the mixing of garbage and recyclables, or unawareness of what can be recycled and what cannot.

“We get a lot of food containers that still have food in them and you can’t recycle that,” she said. “And then some people just mix their trash and recycling so it’s kind of useless.”

Lamm said it’s important to recognize the students working to increase USU’s recycling effort.

“From my perspective, it’s important to acknowledge that the students are doing a lot and Athletics is trying to meet them by adding the recycling bins and putting people in the stadium to pick up recycling,” she said. “But it’s also important for people who are attending the games to actually use that.”

According to the Game Day Recycling Challenge website, the final deadline to report amounts is Dec. 8. Students interested in volunteering are encouraged to email to sustain@aggiemail.usu.edu or visit sustainability.usu.edu.

-manda.perkins@hotmail.com

Twitter: @perkins_manda